COVID-19 | Weekly Update
Friday, September 24th | COVID-19 Daily Update
According to the epidemiological bulletin of DGS, in the last 24 hours, over 757 cases of infection and nine deaths associated with COVID-19 were registered in Portugal. Data released indicate that there have been 1,065,633 confirmed cases and 17,947 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. On the other hand, a further 1,155 people have recovered from the disease, making the total number grow to 1,015,927.
THE PANDEMIC IN PORTUGAL
The prime minister announced yesterday that the country is "in conditions to move forward" to the third and final phase of deconfinement and added that, next week, the target of 85% of the population with complete vaccination should be reached. Meanwhile, António Costa downplayed the statements made by the Secretary of State for Internationalization on COVID-19. Still, he stressed that how Portugal controlled the pandemic "is not a tourist poster". Remember that Eurico Brilhante Dias said yesterday that Portugal won with COVID-19, considering that the country successfully faced the pandemic.
The vaccination centres for COVID-19 will soon be engaged in flu vaccination. The announcement comes in statement in which the task force calls for "all people who have recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection, diagnosed at least three months ago, and who have not yet been vaccinated, to attend a vaccination center" with "as soon as possible".
THE PANDEMIC IN EUROPE AND THE WORLD
In the last 24 hours, Russia recorded a new record of 828 daily deaths due to COVID-19. South Korea also registered a record with 2,434 new cases, right after one of the main festive periods in the Asian country. Already Africa counted 24,308 new infections and 1,092 deaths, bringing to 208,686 the total number of deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
Meanwhile, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has approved boosting COVID-19 vaccines for Americans over 65 and vulnerable people, including healthcare professionals.
MEDICAL PROGRESS
YESTERDAY, the WHO added two drugs to the list of drugs admitted for the treatment of COVID-19 and asked the pharmaceutical that produces them to lower prices and lift patents. Thus, casirivimab and imdevimab, manufactured by the North American company Regeneron, are included in the WHO recommendations for the treatment of mild cases of COVID-19 in patients who are at higher risk of hospitalization and, conditionally, in the treatment of severe cases of disease if they are people without antibodies.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
The deadline for taxpayers with open activity to validate, on the Finance Portal or in the application, the invoices eligible for the IVAucher program ends today, and the balance can be used from October.
Banking, in turn, is preparing to support the restructuring of credits of viable companies after the end of the moratoriums. Still, the solutions do not include, for the time being, the Retomar Line. The banks consider that the conditions included in the Linha Restomar technical sheet, as imposed by the Ministry of Finance, are too restrictive and not very useful.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, TAP guarantees that it has processed 98% of reimbursement requests made globally. After all, 668 million euros were reimbursed to consumers. However, the company still has 46 thousand euros in refund requests to process.
The business sentiment of the German economy fell again in September, for the third consecutive month, with the Ifo index falling to 98.8 points, against 99.6 points in August.
FINANCIAL MARKETS
The Portuguese Stock Exchange was trading in negative territory this morning, devaluing 0.48% to 5.431.46 points. The main European counterparts also followed a general decline. The German DAX dropped 0.69%, while the French CAC 40 dropped 0.65%, the British FTSE 100 depreciated 0.31%, the Italian dropped 0.26%, and the Spanish IBEX 35 slipped 0.22%. The Euro Stoxx opened the session to retreat 0.61%, to 4,169.15 points.